Once again, Wayne Davis, the leading cheerleader for passenger trains in Maine, has disparaged and maligned the residents of Brunswick West (“Activists misstate review of train facility,” July 11, Page A6) who have legitimate and serious questions about the giant overnight layover and maintenance facility proposed for their backyards.

Instead of helping us get answers to our many questions about noise, vibrations, toxic pollution and safety, Davis attacks the Brunswick West Neighborhood Coalition, calling us “sad” and “counterproductive.”

Well Mr. Davis, let’s look at the facts.

We’ve complained repeatedly that we’ve been unable to get access to important public information about the project — a complaint that Davis dismisses as “rubbish.” And yet, despite repeated requests, it took intervention by the governor’s office before a copy of the draft environmental assessment of the project was provided to our group. Numerous other requests for public documents and information that should be readily available are pending or have been stonewalled for months.

Davis refers to the many public hearings that he says the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority held on the proposal. In fact, the informational meetings he is most likely referring to were held at the insistence of state Sen. Stan Gerzofosky, not NNEPRA. The Brunswick Advisory group meetings in 2011 were a complete and utter sham amounting to repetitive descriptions of the facility with no intent to mitigate noise, vibration and air pollution from operations.

He claims that the Brunswick West location is the “most cost effective and practical site” for the facility. But how does he know? The cost of the proposal has ballooned from its original estimate of $5 million, to $12 million to $16 million today, and that’s not even taking into account the expected cost of environmental mitigation of the contaminated soil at the site — which no one has yet calculated and will be paid for by Maine taxpayers.

In reviewing the many documents we’ve been able to obtain, we have come to the inescapable conclusion that the Brunswick West site was the preferred site by NNEPRA and other rail officials as long ago as 2004, long before alternatives were considered or reviewed, simply because it was the most convenient site for their operations.

But Davis and others apparently don’t mind inconveniencing the hundreds of families who will be living with loud noises in the middle of the night, toxic diesel fumes and other hazards that this monstrosity will create. In fact, one Downeaster locomotive is 60 times more polluting than a heavy truck or bus. What is the “cost effectiveness” of that?

It might be instructive for Davis and your readers to take a look at what’s happening in Westminster, Mass., where a virtually identical $12 million rail maintenance and layover facility is being proposed. Instead of welcoming the facility with open arms as our elected officials have done, the officials in Westminster are fighting the project.

Why? Because an independent study shows that it will “create noticeable noise impacts on town residents” and “will, in fact, be an economic detriment to the town.”

In a report last March, the town’s Planning Board said, “Westminster expected to be treated fairly. We expected honest answers to our questions and instead have been given half-truths, no truth or no answer at all. For the most part, we’ve been ignored and not included in the ‘project’ that supposedly benefits us.”

Sound familiar? The identical concerns about a rail layover facility by responsible, elected officials in Westminster are being dismissed in Brunswick as “rubbish” by Wayne Davis.

To paraphrase a familiar quote, one man’s rubbish is another man’s truth.

NESTA MORRISON is a Brunswick resident.